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Sharon quits Likud

AM - Tuesday, 22 November , 2005 08:20:00

Reporter: Alison Caldwell

TONY EASTLEY: In Israel political lines have always been a bit blurred. Now they've been burned, with the decision by the Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to quit the Likud Party he founded more than 30 years ago.

He plans to build a new more centrist liberal party, with some of the more progressive members of his old party, Likud. He's also hoping to entice Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres into his new faction.

At the next election in March voters will be presented with three main choices - the Likud Party on the right, the Labour Party on the left, and Mr Sharon's new movement somewhere in the centre.

Mr Sharon listed peace with the Palestinians and Israeli security as among the main goals of his party, tentatively called National Responsibility.

Alison Caldwell reports.

ALISON CALDWELL: Israeli commentators are describing Ariel Sharon's decision to leave his Likud Party as an earthquake in domestic politics.

The Israeli Prime Minister said the party he'd fought for, for over 30 years, no longer offered hope to Israel.

ARIEL SHARON (translated): After a great hesitations, I decided to leave the Likud. The Likud in its current format cannot lead Israel to its aims, to its national aims. I founded the Likud in order to serve a national idea, and to give hope to the people of Israel. Unfortunately, it doesn't exist there any more.

ALISON CALDWELL: Israel's Labour Party and its new socialist leaning leader Amir Peretz forced Sharon's hand over the weekend when it voted to pull out of the governing coalition.

77-year-old Ariel Sharon was forced to make a decision - stay with his divided party or jump ship and risk building another.

ARIEL SHARON (translated): Remaining in the Likud means a waste of time in political fighting in order to act for the benefit of the state. I prefer the benefit of the state to my personal interest, the easy and the comfortable one.

ALISON CALDWELL: Dubbed 'National Responsibility', his new centrist party will be made up primarily of breakaways from Likud.

It means Israeli voters will be able to choose between three distinct parties in the elections in March next year.

But on the streets of Jerusalem the reactions were mixed.

VOX POP 1: I think it's going to make a real chaos in these early politics, because I for once do not know who I am going to vote for.

VOX POP 2: Well, he basically had a party that wasn't supporting him, so at least now he'll be able to run a platform that people will be able to vote for, or against, and so give the people a choice.

ALISON CALDWELL: Likud member Naomi Blumenthal was an opponent of the Gaza withdrawal.

NAOMI BLUMENTHAL: The opposition inside the Likud Party to his move, to his policy, to his new left-wing policy, is not acceptable, so he concluded, I think he concluded the right conclusion, and he left the party.

The chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat compared it to an erupting volcano.

SAEB EREKAT: It's not that this party's going left or this party's going right, it's restructuring. The Israeli political parties on the basis of what they see and what they think peace should look with us, as Palestinians.

So I hope once the dust settles down, we will have a partner that's willing once and for all to proceed towards the end game, the end of conflict, by reaching the two-state solution.